The big idea behind airport security everywhere is NOT to blow up the planes. Everywhere but France:

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin voiced his concern Sunday at a bungled training exercise by police who allowed a bag with a small amount of explosives to be flown out of the main Paris airport.

The slab, described by security officials as "no more dangerous than a bar of chocolate," was slipped into a hold-all by two dog-handlers.

Hhmmm, the last time we checked chocolate bars were being waved right through security but plastique snacks were pointedly forbidden.

They chose the bag at random as it passed along a conveyer belt between the check-in desks and aircraft loading bays at Charles de Gaulle airport.

The exercise Friday evening was designed to test the dogs' ability to sniff out drugs.

One successfully detected the item, but the other did not, but before they got another chance, the bag had been whisked off towards its destination.

Police have no idea which of around 80 possible flights the bag was placed on, and have informed all the relevant airlines.

[M. Raffarin] "insisted such activities should henceforth be carried out according to criteria strictly guaranteeing the privacy of passengers," his office said.

Had M. Raffarin confined himself to ensuring passenger safety, well, there'd be no fretting about violated privacies.

In the meantime, police say the traveller might not even have noticed their extra baggage.

"It is a small blue case, between 50 and 60 centimetres long," a spokesman said, describing the hold-all. "It is quite possible that the person who owns it has still not found the explosives."

We'll keep an eye out.

UPDATE 12.06.04: The Guardian reports the above incident triggered a global terror alert.

French police admitted that there had been "a momentary lack of surveillance"... Since the bomb squad officers had failed to check where the bag was travelling to, they had no option but to inform staff on 90 flights [Not 80 -- ed.] heading out of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport on Friday evening of the possible presence of explosives in the hold. Police, airlines and airport officials all over the world were put on standby.

Yet even in the midst of this crisis the French demonstrate a firm grasp of the obvious:

"It's clear that there was an error. This kind of thing should not happen," a police spokesman said last night.

"One could imagine that the passenger might feel annoyed," he said.

In many ways, France operates like a 3rd world banana republic. 15,000 die in a 'heat wave' in hospitals which have no air conditioning & no ice, and their leaders cannot be bothered to interrupt vacation.. corruption to the extreme throughout their society ..now we learn the French have been running drills using live explosives in civilian airports. Typical French, explaining away their screwup by announcing that the explosives are no more harmful than a "bar of chocolate". Well, no one is accusing the French of being particularly bright. Silly Frenchies, don't you realize that you shouldn't be using poodles to sniff out explosives?

Whoever has the bag now is in for a big surprise in whatever airport he's landing in, not to mention the fact that the suitcase will carry the smell of the plastique for some time to come, triggering other alarms

I just have visions of some poor little old lady getting the hot lights and the good cop/bad cop routine done to her because of the "souvenir de France".

Hey, I've had french chocolate bars and they ARE lethal! Absolutely deadly to my resolve not to gain weight when I visited France.

now we learn the French have been running drills using live explosives in civilian airports.

You mean like... with a countdown clock running down, like in a Shwarzennager movie?

It wasn't wired, Sherlock, but I admit it was embarassing.

Speaking of embarassing screwup, if only you knew how well French intel's warnings were received by the CIA prior to 9/11...

Talk all you want.

In many ways, France operates like a 3rd world banana republic.

Such as not being able to count votes properly or supplying flu-shots to the most needy ? ;-)

if only you knew how well French intel's warnings were received by the CIA prior to 9/11

Sure, and this "chocolate bar" is a perfect example of why.

Hey everyone don't worry. Inspector Jacque Fife is on the case. The Frogs will nip this problem in the bud in the future.

Zoomeridiot you really need to stop commenting on what you perceive as flaws in the American medical system. Everytime you open your mouth you develop a case of athlete's tonsil from sticking your foot in your mouth. The most "needy" *are* getting their flu shots and there has been fewer (if any, off the top of my head I can't recall hearing of any) flu outbreaks this year than in year's past. So I guess our "unenlightened dark age" medical system is doing something right.

Speaking of embarassing screwup, if only you knew how well French intel's warnings were received by the CIA prior to 9/11...

Are you talking about frog intelligence coups such as the probable forged Nigerian yellowcake documents? Just curious.

Cannon-fart,

In case you do not know, millions of flu vaccines were purchased by the US from Canada and France. Thousands of Americans went directly to Canada to get immunized.

Are you talking about frog intelligence coups such as the probable forged Nigerian yellowcake documents? Just curious.

No, I'm not talking about once again unproved hear-say from the CIA (Completely Incompetent Agency), but actual events.

A key point in unraveling why the FBI failed to follow up leads on Al Qaeda terrorism now centers on the Bureau's contemptuously brushing aside warnings from French intelligence a few days before 9-11. In a footnote to her May 21, 2002, letter to FBI director Robert Mueller, Coleen Rowley, the director of the FBI's Minneapolis office, cryptically alluded to the FBI supervising agent in Washington being given info on the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, by the French last summer, but choosing not to act on it.

French officials were long known to have been frustrated with Washington's neglect. Shortly after the attack, Le Monde reported on a meeting between French and U.S. intelligence: "The first lapse has to do with the processing of intelligence items that come out of Europe. According to our information, French and American officials did in fact hold important meetings in Paris from the 5th to the 6th of September, that is, a few days prior to the attacks. Those sessions brought representatives of the American Special Services together with officers of the DST (Directorate of Territorial Security) and military personnel from the DGSE (General Overseas Security Administration).

"Their discussion turned to some of the serious threats made against American interests in Europe, specifically one targeting the U.S. Embassy in Paris," Le Monde continued. "During these talks, the DST directed the American visitors' attention to a Moroccan-born Frenchman who had been detained in the United States since August 17 and who was considered to be a key high-level Islamic fundamentalist. But the American delegation, preoccupied above all with questions of administrative procedure, paid no attention to this 'first alarm,' basically concluding that they were going to take no one's advice, and that an attack on American soil was inconceivable. It took September 11 for the FBI to show any real interest in this man, who we now know attended two aviation training schools, as did at least seven of the kamikaze terrorists."

In her report, Rowley presents a picture of an agency asleep at the wheel. "For example, at one point, the Supervisory Special Agent at FBI HQ posited that the French information could be worthless because it only identified Zacarias Moussaoui by name and he, the SSA, didn't know how many people by that name existed in France. A Minneapolis agent attempted to surmount that problem by quickly phoning the FBI's legal attache in Paris, France, so that a check could be made of the French telephone directories. Although the attache did not have access to all of the French telephone directories, he was able to quickly ascertain that there was only one listed in the Paris directory. It is not known if this sufficiently answered the question, for the SSA continued to find new reasons to stall."

The story was picked up by Newsweek 2 years ago in a front-page report about CIA whistleblowers in which a woman employee (probably the one mentioned above) information from French intelligence fell completely on deaf ears.

Even the US State Department admits neglect. Let's hear your lame excuses.

And speaking of foreign vaccines, this just in...

Zoomeridiot we couldn't have bought any flu vaccine from Canada since the canucks refused to sell us any, they are now keeping their stockpile for domestic use. (It was just on CNN Headline news as I was flipping through channels.) Such is their rights as socialist freeloaders off the American drug system. "We subsidize the world's health care," should be our motto.

Canadians are in a frenzy over the prospect of drug reimportation, and are digging in their heels to oppose it. Why might that be? Gosh, it's almost as though they know that if Americans stop footing the bill for everyone, it will hit their own pockets.

Wahahah almost as funny as dumbya's FBI losing a bunch of Saudi's learning to fly a plane but not how to take-off or land it...

Yeah, a real hoot wasn't it...

That would be Clinton's FBI at the time they took the clases and did the planning.

That would be Clinton's FBI at the time they took the classes and did the planning.

supplying flu-shots to the most needy ? ……And speaking of foreign vaccines, this just in...

Well, let’s speak of “foreign vaccines”, shall we zoomer. But before you start huffing and puffing and banging your chest about the great “foreign” vaccines there is one thing you should remember: We lost much of the anticipated US flu vaccine supply when a British plant was shut down because of contamination problems. Just to help you out a bit, zoomer, see, a British plant is foreign.

Of course, if we purchased “foreign” flu shots from France, we would not have to worry about them being made by Muslims. Appears the frogs won’t hire them. Wow, zoomer, how "extreme" and "ignorant" of you frogs....

Wow! A case of illegal discrimination based on ethnicity! Those French...

Hey look! Another total-stranger-goes-on-deadly-rampage story!

I'm sure Blow-hard will enjoy this one. Welcome to the league of "third world banana republics"!

To err is human.... except in the US of course. Ha!

I'm sure Blow-hard will enjoy this one

You're comparing apples to poodles. Let's see, on one hand, you have French security planting LIVE explosives on unsuspecting passengers in a civilian airport, then losing track. In the case of the US, our agents who lost track were:

1) Not so idiotic as to use live explosives like the French. One only has to imagine the plastique explosives being planted on the wrong muslim to understand the utter stupidity and endangerment caused by these French training drills

2) Not so arrogant/French-like as to run the drills by invading the privacy of unsuspecting passengers, planting explosives on their person. Our agents planted benign devices which were not explosive in luggage to test screening, not on a person.